Quote Originally Posted by Little-Acorn View Post
When parents have kids, the parents owe those kids a decent upbringing, to the extent those parents can provide. (and when the kids grow up and have their own kids, they will owe THEIR kids the same, etc. etc.).

When parents with kids divorce, they are renegging on the debt they owe their kids. Even if the divorce was justified, even inevitable, they still owe that debt to their kids... and the divorce interferes in major ways with its settlement, regardless of the circumstances of the divorce.

How SHOULD the parents fulfill the debt they owe to their kids, after they divorce? Child support payments are part of the way. Visitation is another, etc. What exactly SHOULD the judge decide?
Yep. Majority of divorces now end in joint custody. When there is sole custody it's usually because of one parent being deemed much more functional as a parent or the parent giving up joint custody, doesn't want the responsibility.

Child support is for the children. Dmp's point of splitting the costs of housing, food, etc., when custodial parent isn't able to make 1/2 of the costs of keeping the children in the lifestyle they had previously, doesn't make sense. This is especially true when the major earner just wants to walk away.

Take a good look at J.P.'s bio. After the divorce and the 'awarding' of child support, he took off to live the life of the happy traveler. No kids, no wife, no job. When that caught up with him, he went goofy and started spray painting graffiti on public buildings. That was the cause of incarceration and may be why he had limited/restricted visitation after.